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Words for “yes” in Romance languages

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Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#141

Post by cryptonector »

twiss wrote: post #6
andybak wrote: post #2

This! (Sorry... Fantastic article in any case. I send anything similar to a friend who studied linguistics. This one is going to her immediately.)

While it's a superb article, it strikes me as being distinctly aimed at laypeople, and I suspect someone who studied linguistics might already know large parts of it. (I haven't, but I know parts from having had Latin in school.) (Also, it contains the words "This is not exactly what happened but it is basically what happened, please just fucking roll with it, this shit is long enough already." so I suspect there mig…

The point of the article is to say that using "this" in English as an affirmation is not a new phenomenon at all, and really, not wrong either (would we say it's wrong to say "oui" or "sí" or whatever is used in various Romance languages? no, we would not). That's a fair message to lay people and experts both.

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#143

Post by gugagore »

In American Sign Language, the signs glossed as THAT and as YES also resemble each other.

The sign YES is http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-signs/y/yes.htm which looks like a head nod, but also it is the general motion your hand takes when you spell Y-E-S in the manual alphabet. (Lots of ASL signs are lexicalized fingerspellings. They started off as just being fingerspelled, but over time they became words themselves)

The sign THAT can be used to agree with someone emphatically (and also as backchanneling, as in THAT THAT THAT, is like "yeah, uh huh, oh, ok, mm") For an example see the second image on http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-signs/t/that.htm

Notice that THAT is made with the Y handshape, same as the initial letter in Y-E-S, and moves like YES. Hmm!

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#144

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

kleiba wrote: post #87

I personally find the use of single word "This." in reply to a comment on forums (such as e.g. HN) really annoying. (But then again, I've reached an age where you tend to find everything new awful.) I guess the reason why it pisses me off is that it doesn't do anything that "Yes.", "Exactly.", "I agree" couldn't already do, but at the same time it has this overly sweet smell of kool-aid that just makes you sick.

To me, "This." is stronger than "Yes.", "Exactly.", etc.

In my opinion, "This." means that you not only agree with the previous comments, but you could have made it yourself. It has a connotation of "This is the full answer", "This is it, you don't even need to read further below", "This is exactly the same thing I would have said".

I might be making the connotations up, though, it's not like there is a dictionary covering this kind of things.

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#145

Post by felipelemos »

kaoD wrote: post #89
felipelemos wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both translate to 'this'. Isso is a coloquial form of isto. Aquilo translate to 'that'.

That sounds similar to spanish' esto, eso, aquello so I guess their usage is similar? Esto (isto) = this (at hand's reach) Eso (isso) = that (close but out of reach) Aquello (aquilo) = that (far away) Isto and isso are both "close" but they're still different degrees of closeness. I would still translate 'eso' as 'that'. EDIT: But I guess you speak Brazilian Portuguese: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/isto#Portuguese…

Yes I speak brazilian portuguese. I think the usage is different from spanish, and probably 'isto' and 'aquilo' is the same for both in Brazil and Portugal, while 'isso' usage exists only in Brazil.

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#146

Post by Balgair »

shasheene wrote: post #111
js2 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me (I’m 46 so I think I’ve reached “get off my lawn” age), it’s short for “this [is the correct answer.]” So I’ve never had a problem with it and probably used it once or twice myself. A couple summers ago at the pool I heard a teenage girl exclaim “poned!” after besting her friend at something they were playing. It took me a moment to realize she’d just said “pwned” since I’d never heard it said out loud before…

> A couple summers ago at the pool I heard a teenage girl exclaim “poned!” after besting her friend at something they were playing. It took me a moment to realize she’d just said “pwned” since I’d never heard it said out loud before and in my mind I’ve always read it “owned.” Now that was a “get off my lawn moment!” That pronunciation was popularized by the famous South Park episode on World of Warcraft [1] [2] which…

I'd go with the all time great Canadian Gamer show: PurePwnage, from 2004, as the popularizer of the spoken term. Though it goes back to at least 1999 with the original CounterStrike and the term in text, then read aloud. I remember the shouts of 'pone' in the afterschool computer lounge from friends to at least 1999, if not earlier.

http://www.purepwnage.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Pwnage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwn

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#147

Post by ralmeida »

icebraining wrote: post #57
blowski wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Portuguese, although ‘sim’ means yes, when answering a question in the affirmative you often use the same verb as the question. For example: “Gosta frango? Gosto.” “Do you like chicken? I like it.” Also, it’s common to say ‘isso’ to agree with something. It means ‘this’ and Anglophones are now doing the same thing, at least online.

Pedantically, "isso" means "that". "This" is "isto".

To be fair, it’s almost uncommon to say an articulated ‘isto’ in colloquial spoken language.

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#148

Post by loggedinmyphone »

apendleton wrote: post #129
loggedinmyphone wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shaking one's head for "no" is far from universal - it means "yes" in parts of India as well.

India also has its own head motion that, for lack of better way of explaining it, is in aircraft terms a roll as compared to our pitch for yes and yaw for no. (Or maybe that's what you're talking about?). It doesn't mean "yes" exactly from what I've been able to gather, but more like "uh-huh" might be used as marker of paying attention in a running conversation. Like "I hear you, please continue" without explicitly a…

That's probably a better description. At first blush it looks like something you might interpret as skepticism - rocking the head side to side as if to say "That's not quite right." It took me a while to figure out it indicates a positive response to a question like "Does this bus go downtown?" rather than a negative one.

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#149

Post by talideon »

midhir wrote: post #40

"So we can look at, for example, Old Irish, where they said tó to mean yes" Really? In modern Irish we substitute Tá for yes but it's not really yes. We don't have yes or no, we repeat the verb of the question positively or negatively. Tá is kind of 'am', níl 'am not' like "Are you going to watch Mrs Browns Boys tonight?" "I am not." Are they really comparable? Maybe somewhere along the line Tá (pronounced 'taw') was…

That's not quite right. 'Tá' only means 'yes' when answering a question in the present tense that uses the verb 'bí', e.g., 'An bhfuil tú anseo? Tá.' ('Are you there? (I) am' - 'bhfuil' is from the dependent form of the verb 'bí').

OIr 'tó' and 'tá' aren't (directly at least) related. From what I can dig up from eDIL, 'tó' and 'náthó' are borrowings of the Welsh 'do' and 'nado' that later fell out of use again.

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#150

Post by talideon »

DFHippie wrote: post #103
midhir wrote: post #40

"So we can look at, for example, Old Irish, where they said tó to mean yes" Really? In modern Irish we substitute Tá for yes but it's not really yes. We don't have yes or no, we repeat the verb of the question positively or negatively. Tá is kind of 'am', níl 'am not' like "Are you going to watch Mrs Browns Boys tonight?" "I am not." Are they really comparable? Maybe somewhere along the line Tá (pronounced 'taw') was…

In Welsh you use "do" to assent to things asserted about the past. "Wyt ti wedi bwyta?" [Have you eaten?] "Do." [Yes.] The negative is "naddo". If you ask a question with something other than the verb initial, the affirmative is "ie" and the negative "nage". Otherwise, it works like you say in Irish or as in an English wedding ceremony. "Do you take so-and-so to be your lawfully wedded spouse?" "I do."

The 'tó' and 'náthó' mentioned in the article are actually borrowings from Middle Welsh into Middle Irish, but they fell out of fashion again. Old Irish didn't have yes/no equivalents.

'Tá' (present tense independent form of the verb 'bí') and 'tó' aren't thought to be related.

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